


Solace

by thievesguilding



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-11
Updated: 2015-01-11
Packaged: 2018-03-07 04:17:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3160907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thievesguilding/pseuds/thievesguilding
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I woke up and found this and promptly got mad at myself for it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Solace

Somehow everything is easier in the Fade.

It wasn’t at first, of course— what Kaelis learned as a child was a different kind of magic, rooted in the earth like a tree, pragmatic and physical. Solid, grounded magic, to keep a fire lit in a snowstorm, to set wards of rock and vine around the camp and keep the wolves at bay; her training had been as much in herbs and good sense as the arcane.

And the first time she visited the Beyond, it was nightmarish, and not in the standard sense. She had never done well with the unfamiliar; the first time her clan came near a shemlen village she had hidden in her parents’ aravel for days, even when the other children dared each other to sneak into the town and the adults had gone with overtures of trade. It hadn’t one specific thing she was afraid of; she didn’t know what was going to happen, and that was worse. The first time Keeper Istimaethoriel guided her into the Beyond, the unfamiliar shapes, textures, even the smells of the place had been enough to drive her into hiding again. It was easier after that, when she knew what to expect, but even so she never actively sought to enter the Fade with her waking mind. It had its purpose, of course, but it was the haunt of spirits and other darker things, best left to them.

With Solas it was different. With gentle teasing and promised secrets more vivid than those she found in ruins, he coaxed her into the Beyond with him, opening her eyes to the wonder of it. And it was a wonder; will made reality around her, fleeting and evanescent, and achingly beautiful. Like the sweetest dream come to life, not the strange and surreal fever dream of her early experiences. In the Fade she saw his love for her made real in the tantalisingly clear streams and sun-gilded trees of her childhood. Half-remembered herds of wild halla, shaped by her will and his guidance, danced on translucent hooves around her as she smiled breathlessly and concentrated on their form in spite of the ever-present distraction of Solas’ fingertips on her wrist, her shoulder, her cheek. When she inevitably lost them, he would scold her for losing her focus— all the while brushing velvet-soft kisses across her neck and jaw. “Try again,” he would tell her, hiding a mischievous glint in his eye as he crossed his arms sternly.

After that it was a refuge; when the harsh flashes of the rifts seared her eyes and the harsh clanging screeches of their demons clawed at her ears, when the bitter taste of the raw Fade seeping into the air around her clung to her throat— when the waking world seemed as terrible and unfamiliar as the shemlen village— she would find somewhere quiet and slip out of it. Curled around herself, sinking into dreams, she could finally relax. 


End file.
